Should the opportunity arise, don’t deny yourself a viewing of The Corporation. The documentary outlines the deplorable nature of corporate business practices, today and over the past 150 years. Issues addressed include the exploitation of workers in developing countries, environmental degradation, products and their consumer health risks, the erosion of human rights, and unsustainability.
Fortunately, The Corportation doesn’t suffer from the overpowering bias that typically plagues ‘tree-hugger’ type presentations. At 165 minutes, it is a bit long-winded though. Whilst one may be aware of some of the issues raised, in addition to presenting new and interesting material the documentary emphasises how our baisc rights, together with the earth itself, are being sold off to big business. Why not reasses the legal construct of today’s corporations and start limiting their powers(?), it asks.
Be warned, watching this production is likely to put you off American-produced milk-based foodstuff (milk, cheese, yogurt, pasta, chocolate… all of it!). I never knew. Thank you Canada for banning the use milk-producing hormones (rBGH), and sparing me the added cancer risks.
One more thing, watching this film I could not help but shake the idea that cyber-terrorism (for want of a better descriptor), will become all the more pervasive. Increasingly, the only way for the little guys (the public at large) to exert influence on public policy and achieve social justice — in the age of omnipotent corporate lawyers, their brand of legal terrorism, and special interest lobbying — is through the powers of cyberspace vigilantism.
Finally cracked the 10k mark. For those of you wondering why I’d been hovering around 9,700-ish for an entire month, just know that Shaw didn’t quite see it my way when I gulped down 60GB of bandwidth in the first week of April (10GB more than their entry-level business account permits per month… and I’m only on residential).
Musicplasma is a great tool for finding artists that may be similar to those you already like. Simply type in the name of an artist, and the engine smartly maps out a network of related artists, clustering the results by degree of relation based on genre, time-period and other factors. The map can be recentred, zoomed, and each result can be clicked on to search for that artist’s specific results. Works of the requested artist are also listed.
Great, this will help cut down the bandwidth I waste when downloading work from artists I’m unfamiliar with (and then hating most of it).
This post is a bit stale, but I’ll put it out there just for the record. Two weeks ago my father and I were lucky enough to get a pair of centre-line tickets to Game 4 of the Flames v. Wings series from some friends of ours — they were invited to an audience with the Pope that week.
There’s not all that much to say about the game itself. Calgary played shabbily by their own standards. Poor passing made for a painful first half, but they did come back to tie things 2-2. The 2 goals were scored within 18 seconds of each other although it was more like 10 deafening minutes of actual time b/w the first goal and the time play resumed before the second — Calgary fans are absolutely nuts!! we just couldn’t sit down, quit applauding, or stop shouting, screaming, and blowing bugles (and getting refills for all the spilled beer too - twice). Sadly the Flames went 3-2 down in the third, and suffered a 4th goal when they cleared Kiprusoff out of goal to put an extra man on the ice in the closing minutes.
An exhilirating experience despite the loss. It was my first hockey game, and what better way to do it than a baptism by fire with the Flames playing in the second round for the first time in 15 years?!
Unfortunately I have no pictures to share (except this one taken before heading off to the game). Not for lack of trying though. I rented a Canon EF 70-200 f2.8 L to shoot the game with, but didn’t get to snap even a single shot. I was stopped by security on my way in and forced to check the camera in with the concierge because I didn’t have a ‘media pass’ … one small detail that will NOT escape me next time.
